OOO FLAVUS AND OTHERS v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT
In the case of OOO Flavus and Others v. Russia,
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting as a
Chamber composed of:
Paul Lemmens, President,
Georgios A. Serghides,
Helen Keller,
Dmitry Dedov,
María Elósegui,
Gilberto Felici,
Erik Wennerström, judges,
and Milan Blaško, Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the applications (nos. 12468/15, 23489/15 and 19074/16) against the
Russian Federation lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the
Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
(“the Convention”) by two Russian limited-liability companies,
OOO Flavus and OOO Mediafokus, and a Russian national, Mr Garri
Kimovich Kasparov (“the applicants”), on the dates set out in the Appendix;
the decision to give notice of the applications to the Russian Government
(“the Government”);
the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the
observations in reply submitted by the applicants;
the comments submitted by third-party interveners who were granted
leave to intervene by the President of the Section;
Having deliberated in private on 26 May 2020,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
INTRODUCTION
The case concerns the wholesale blocking of three online media outlets
on the grounds that some of their webpages featured allegedly unlawful
content.
THE FACTS
1. The applicants were represented by Mr D. Gaynutdinov and
Ms S. Kuzevanova, lawyers practising in Moscow and Voronezh,
respectively.
2. The Government were represented initially by Mr A. Fedorov, head of
the office of the Representative of the Russian Federation to the European
Court of Human Rights, and then by Mr M. Galperin, the Representative.
3. The facts of the cases, as submitted by the parties, may be
summarised as follows.
1